"EMG-6 Shop Notes" is a day-to-day accounting of what's going on in the shop with the EMG-6 Electric Motor Glider.

December 12, 2016
Ben, One of the new builders, came by the shop today to share a couple of new motors that he is going to be experimenting with. We will post more information about them as he shares it with us.

"EMG-6 Shop Notes" is a day-to-day accounting of what's going on in the shop with the EMG-6 Electric Motor Glider.

January 30, 2017
For the last 16 days straight we have been engaged in a light sport
repairman maintenance class. This is one of the smallest classes that
we've ever had. Four of the students that signed up for this class had
to pull out for various reasons just before the start of class. The
wintertime classes are always limited to a maximum of 12 to accommodate
the facilities during the cold winter months. As it turned out the best
day, weather wise, of the entire class was the last day. All of the
students graduated with flying colors and will now move on to utilize
their FAA light sport repairman maintenance certificate in different
ways. Although this was a small size class of only 8 students, they came
from pretty much every corner of the United States. And unlike a normal
class, we had no foreign students this time. The next class wil…

January 7, 2017
News about what to buy:
Before looking at batteries - consider the voltage current demand. Let’s compare voltage to gasoline. One gallon of gas contains 33.7kWh energy
according to EPA or 33,700Wh. How big of battery would that be? An NCM
Lithium-Ion pack would be 33.7kWh, 172 cells, 635v, 107Ah and weigh 927
pounds. If you factor in the fact that the average car only gets 23% of
that energy - the battery pack would still weigh: 213 pounds. So adding a
big current demand is not good. Nor is it a good idea to equate the
battery pack weight to 5 gallons of fuel in ultralights. ("apples to apples”)

For Sea-Kite.com the number one incentive was to build a highly efficient motor and use less energy.
It has been easy for some motor designers to make high kW demanding
motors. The problem - airplanes just couldn’t carry enough batteries.
Big motors also disqualify themselves to …

Top 10 apps for the aircraft builder
“There’s an app for that.” This overused cliché becomes more and more apropos every day. Even for the aircraft builder, we now have a virtual toolbox in our pocket that has become indispensable. We have reached the point in technology where it is now the norm for an aircraft manufacturer to publish maintenance manuals, parts manuals, and all other documentation, for that matter, in a digital format. If you’ve grown up on paper, the transition to digital can sometimes be difficult, but the rewards are well worth the effort.

#1 The PDF Reader App:(Figure: 1) The Rotax manuals, for example, consists of literally thousands of pages spanning more than a dozen different manuals. The ability to use a search function on a 500-page manual can really speed up the process of locating the information that you’re looking for. In our shop, we have a library of aircraft maintenance manuals accumulated over the last 40 years.

Polini and the EMG-6
The Polini Motor is one of the Power Plant option that we have adapted for the EMG-6 for those that are wanting longer cross county capability or just in the interim until the electrical power plant systems are more refined.
Overview
- The cylinder is die-cast in light alloy, it ensures a better thermal stability.

- The piston, gravity cast at high silicon content light alloy, reduces thermal expansion and the coupling slack. The design of the piston top is specific to optimize the compression ratio.

- It is provided with a balancing countershaft; this feature cancels the vibrations and guarantees comfort never felt during a flight and a longer life for the engine itself. The counter-rotating rollers decrease greatly the upsetting torque-steer for an extra comfort in flight.

January 7, 2017
News about what to buy:
Before looking at batteries - consider the voltage current demand. Let’s compare voltage to gasoline. One gallon of gas contains 33.7kWh energy
according to EPA or 33,700Wh. How big of battery would that be? An NCM
Lithium-Ion pack would be 33.7kWh, 172 cells, 635v, 107Ah and weigh 927
pounds. If you factor in the fact that the average car only gets 23% of
that energy - the battery pack would still weigh: 213 pounds. So adding a
big current demand is not good. Nor is it a good idea to equate the
battery pack weight to 5 gallons of fuel in ultralights. ("apples to apples”)

For Sea-Kite.com the number one incentive was to build a highly efficient motor and use less energy.
It has been easy for some motor designers to make high kW demanding
motors. The problem - airplanes just couldn’t carry enough batteries.
Big motors also disqualify themselves to …

Polini and the EMG-6
The Polini Motor is one of the Power Plant option that we have adapted for the EMG-6 for those that are wanting longer cross county capability or just in the interim until the electrical power plant systems are more refined.
Overview
- The cylinder is die-cast in light alloy, it ensures a better thermal stability.

- The piston, gravity cast at high silicon content light alloy, reduces thermal expansion and the coupling slack. The design of the piston top is specific to optimize the compression ratio.

- It is provided with a balancing countershaft; this feature cancels the vibrations and guarantees comfort never felt during a flight and a longer life for the engine itself. The counter-rotating rollers decrease greatly the upsetting torque-steer for an extra comfort in flight.

"EMG-6 Shop Notes" is a day-to-day accounting of what's going on in the shop with the EMG-6 Electric Motor Glider.

December 12, 2016
Ben, One of the new builders, came by the shop today to share a couple of new motors that he is going to be experimenting with. We will post more information about them as he shares it with us.

"EMG-6 Shop Notes" is a day-to-day accounting of what's going on in the shop with the EMG-6 Electric Motor Glider.

January 30, 2017
For the last 16 days straight we have been engaged in a light sport
repairman maintenance class. This is one of the smallest classes that
we've ever had. Four of the students that signed up for this class had
to pull out for various reasons just before the start of class. The
wintertime classes are always limited to a maximum of 12 to accommodate
the facilities during the cold winter months. As it turned out the best
day, weather wise, of the entire class was the last day. All of the
students graduated with flying colors and will now move on to utilize
their FAA light sport repairman maintenance certificate in different
ways. Although this was a small size class of only 8 students, they came
from pretty much every corner of the United States. And unlike a normal
class, we had no foreign students this time. The next class wil…

Top 10 apps for the aircraft builder
“There’s an app for that.” This overused cliché becomes more and more apropos every day. Even for the aircraft builder, we now have a virtual toolbox in our pocket that has become indispensable. We have reached the point in technology where it is now the norm for an aircraft manufacturer to publish maintenance manuals, parts manuals, and all other documentation, for that matter, in a digital format. If you’ve grown up on paper, the transition to digital can sometimes be difficult, but the rewards are well worth the effort.

#1 The PDF Reader App:(Figure: 1) The Rotax manuals, for example, consists of literally thousands of pages spanning more than a dozen different manuals. The ability to use a search function on a 500-page manual can really speed up the process of locating the information that you’re looking for. In our shop, we have a library of aircraft maintenance manuals accumulated over the last 40 years.